


Harvard Calibration

by Sporksprocket



Category: Call Down the Hawk - Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater, The Dreamer Trilogy - Fandom
Genre: Harvard Student Adam Parrish, Harvard University, Introspection, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:00:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26996323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporksprocket/pseuds/Sporksprocket
Summary: The more he interacted with people, other students, professors, RA’s, TA’s, etc., the more he felt slightly off balance. It felt like the ground which he had walked upon, the path that led here, took him along such a different terrain than everyone else. How could any one of these people truly relate to his journey? Whose map’s dotted lines could really line up with his, the winding and curving path that, while it never went backwards, didn’t always appear to be moving forwards either? Their eyes looked like they could see the dirt on the bottom of his shoes.—Or, Adam’s time at Harvard before Ronan visited
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Harvard Calibration

_Slow down you crazy child, you’re so ambitious for a juvenile, but then if you’re so smart, tell me why are you still so afraid? —Vienna - Billy Joel_

  
When Adam first arrived at Harvard, he felt like he had entered a new world. Not of the sci-fi movie variety in that there was wondrous new things to see and explore, but in the feeling of otherness, of a unique cluelessness where everyone else was so sure, the muted culture shock settling atop his sternum.   
  


To be fair, it wasn’t immediate. Harvard was what he had worked towards for so long. He had seen the campus in the brochures they sent him, had carved their images into the back of his eyelids, they could never really startle him. At first it had felt like a new world in which he could already imagine a future, four years from now, reaping what he was only beginning to sow.   
  


The more he interacted with people, other students, professors, RA’s, TA’s, the more he felt slightly off balance. It felt like the ground which he had walked upon, the path that led here, took him along such a different terrain than everyone else. How could any one of these people truly relate to him? Whose map’s dotted lines could really line up with his, the winding and curving path that, while it never went backwards, didn’t always appear to be moving forwards either? His zig-zagged while their’s were a straight line, from A to B, from birth to success. Their eyes looked like they could see the dirt on the bottom of his shoes.

His candor felt like it would be a contaminant. Everything you wore, said, felt, defined who you are, who you will be. How could he walk into his stats class if he dressed like he didn’t care, about the class or his future? How could he walk into english and want his professor to take him seriously if he didn’t present himself seriously?

* * *

  
He wore the old dress clothes he acquired from Gansey and pretended like it was part of the charm.

He’s wished, for so long now, that he could dress like this, be like this ideal successful man that he’s admired and hated all at once.

Not dressed exactly the same way of course. The specifics of this image only got more and more refined as time went on, as he attended Aglionby and met Gansey’s family, and saw Ronan’s house. It came more and more into focus until finally he could see it like a mirror, his reflection and the idea came closer and closer together, until finally it crossed over from a venn diagram to a perfect man.

Then his roommate came into the picture, and the long line of crying kids he found across campus. How many times had he longed for someone to come by and help him, whenever he sat outside the double-wide and cried? How many times had he wanted someone to care?

It had been so long since he had had to make friends, since biking past that broken down car one dusty morning. Had he ever made friends himself, taken the initiative, or had it always been the other person who came to him, let him put his bike in the trunk of their car? Could he even help someone the way he had been helped. He didn’t have the same charisma as Gansey, the intrinsic self-assuredness he longed to have.

  
But how could he forget that the reason he hated those perfect men were because they didn’t help? Not him, or not just him, but anyone. How could they have all that power and not deign themselves to do better, be better? Where did that self-assuredness come from if not their good actions? Was it solely from their perceived accomplishments? Not everything you could accomplish was defined by work or amount of money, life wasn’t a video game with step by step achievements until you finally won. Maybe what he really had always dreamed of wasn’t real, not yet. He needed to create it.   
  


* * *

He remembered when he arrived he wanted to fit in, to unquestionably belong to Harvard and its history of successful and dignified people. His group, his friends, did they fit in? They were of money, they dressed in the same old academic style that he did, but they were so loud, unabashed in themselves. Did that mark him different, to be one of them? He found he cared less about fitting in with his idea of Harvard, as long as he could fit in with these people he aspired to be like to much.   
  


They were loud about their affection towards him, it was strange sometimes to think about. It made his stomach a little warm until he remembered they liked the him he had shown them. Would they still like him if they knew he wasn’t one of them, would they keep him around, not out of pity or awkwardness, but because it didn’t matter? He would still be their roommate, their friend, the same one that found them crying in a stairwell. But after lying for this long, would it feel like an insult, a rejection? To believe them so shallow, to use them as a cover. Or would it not even come to that, would it not matter, because they would reject him immediately, before it even came to the subject of their previous kinship? Maybe not an immediate, loud rejection, but a rejection that quiets people down when he enters, that places itself between him and others so that they stayed a certain distance away, that, when he wasn’t looking, closed a door on the relationship?

He hated that he might find out one day.

He pushed it from his head and continued playing Repo, answering questions about the large oak tree in his backyard he used to climb as a kid.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies if there’s any discrepancies with actual Harvard, I know I didn’t describe much about it but just in case, let me know. I am in college but nowhere near Harvard lol. Besides, the idea of Harvard isn’t necessarily accurate, as it is how Adam sees it, and he probs holds it up to high standards.
> 
> This was supposed to be more relatable college stuff but ended up being this instead, which is not really as much. Theres a chance I will add to this, but idk for sure.


End file.
